Last night I had the most vivid dream. I was walking down a street, one that I knew very well except it was empty. The buildings were vacant, even though they were still well kept and the street was clean, maybe even cleaner than in reality. There were no cars, the people I had once known to walk down that street, you know, one of those laughing apparitions from a timeless memory, they were gone too. It was just me, and I saw the lights still on from the old movie house, as displaced from a sock-hop era America, gleaming in the reflections of the windows of the cafes and book stores. Everything was there, but, everything was gone. Everything that mattered about that street had long since abandoned it. It felt the way an empty stadium feels, like it has no purpose, but there's this constant anticipation about something that will never happen.
The next thing I knew, I was walking instead down the long hallway to my room. The room that I spent most of my days in when I was growing up, not the one I live in now. But it felt like home and at the same time, like I was touring my own past. The walls were painted the way they were when I was 11, except I may have exaggerated the pink color a little. I still remember the name of the shade: Impatient pink. It's so fitting for how I felt about it, constantly anticipating the day the color could change. I liked it when I was 8. Three years changes a person's perspective especially when it's spent surrounded by pink. As I was observing everything, still in its place and still cold as anything because that room hardly wintered well, when placed next to the creepy, unfinished spare room. Sometimes I swore I heard someone knocking on the other side of the door in the middle of the night. I noticed something that wasn't there before, it was another person. A girl, not me, but doing probably exactly what I was doing when I was her age in that room, writing some useless information from a stolen textbook into a journal. But the room then became less welcoming when I saw her, as if it didn't need me to fill its large, cold, gaps, with those high cathedral ceilings and the ominous unused door. So I left. I picked up my cat, and left.
Keep in mind, this cat hates me and because of its mentally unstable, deranged personality, I have a difficult time liking it (the cat's family has a history of mental illness... that was actually confirmed by a vet). But, it seemed really important to take her, so I did. I chose my dad's truck which in reality I can't drive a stick shift and this particular truck is part of the reason. My dad tried to teach me but, he gave up after a long lecture about how I was burning the clutch (it was the first time I had ever even tried). In my dream I remember thinking of this, my heart sort of raced because of the urgency I felt to get out of that house but I knew I couldn't because I couldn't even drive the car. I'd never be able to keep it from stalling every four feet. I'd burn out the clutch. There was too much expectation, too much anticipation, to much noise from the damn cat sitting next to me.
I did it. I drove to the end of the driveway without stalling. I drove to the end of the road. I turned left, this was where I panicked, I remember thinking "shift, shift, you have to fucking shift" and I did. As smooth as ever, I kept that truck running. I looked over to see the cat on its hind legs, staring out the window. I smiled. There was this sense of relief, but still that anticipation. It felt better though, as if I could be going anywhere, but no matter where it was, it was going to be good. I'd be happy, I just had to keep that truck from stalling.
Why did I need that damn cat?
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